“Send” the Indigenous, Part 3

So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. The only reason I have used the word “send” is because it is such an important word in “Christianese” that most of us understand with regard to missions or with fulfilling the Great Commission.

*Warning! Rabbit trail!*: Along with the word “go.” We understand what is meant by “go” as well as “send.” However, both words are loaded—like so many words used in the subculture of Christianity in America.

Let’s think of some other examples: “Evangelical.” Do people who are in the church have any idea what a nasty word this is to the people on the outside? “Missionary.” Here’s a word that people outside our subculture think of as an invasion force. To them, missionaries destroy the culture and the traditions of entire civilizations, turning the people into Americanized Christian clones. (That’s not a good thing to them, by the way.) Every day the Prime Directive is being violated by well-meaning Christians. *And the rabbit trail ends abruptly before it gets out of hand…*

Okay, back to the theme. The word that is better—the one that I believe we are called to do for the “Next Generation” (another Star Trek reference)—is “empower.”

Empower the indigenous.

Some of you are asking, “Where do Bible school and Seminary fit into the mix?” And I would respond, “Where do we ‘send’ the indigenous to learn the ‘God stuff’ without overwhelming them with the ‘man stuff’?” When you find that place, you let me know, will you?

In the meantime I think we have to mentor while being “reverse mentored.” Treating them and accepting them as equals, we need to come along side the next leaders and allow them to develop their own expressions with very broad, spandex-like boundaries.

If we can control ourselves and give the Holy Spirit room to do his work, I believe that the Church of the future will naturally, organically become more like the New Testament church than it has been since the first century.

“Send” the Indigenous, Part 1

The church in which I grew up has become one of the largest missionary sending organizations the world has ever known. It was conceived and birthed in the heat of passion for going and sending based on the aforementioned Great Commission. But if there is one thing we have learned, it is that why and how one is sent is as critical as being sent in the first place.

What we have learned is that sometimes the worst thing that can happen to a country, a culture, or a people group is the invasion of what I’ll call fanatical Christian salvation guerillas. Because, the one and only message they have is salvation. So they storm the country with medical teams, food supplies, or relief efforts, in an attempt to gain an attentive ear for their message by providing for needs. Now, providing for needs isn’t a bad thing. That is very much a Kingdom value taught by Jesus. But not when the real purpose is bait and switch.

When physical needs are met for the sole purpose of creating a captive audience for a quick presentation of the Gospel, that is bait and switch. And, it doesn’t just happen in foreign countries either. It also happens in churches every week right here in the good old US of A.

Youth are baited with pizza, extreme games, celebrity guests, and fancy hangouts. Adults are baited with promises of wealth, beauty, and success, not to mention a break from their children for at least an hour. Add on top of that promises of discipleship training for every age group (as though that was supposed to be the job of the church and not the disciple).

Worse than that, the needy in our cities are promised food in exchange for a church service which they have to attend. “Free clothing” comes with a secret price tag—the cost of which is measured in enduring bad music and a reductionist salvation message. In either situation—the fancy church or the skid row mission—the problem is the same. Here it is: What you win them with, you win them to—whether it’s pizza, prosperity, or free clothes.

Now, I know that many churches and Christian organizations do wonderful things for people with no strings attached. Those groups have my compliments. But there are just as many, if not more, who use this as a “strategy.”

Last Sunday afternoon, I went to a downtown park where some friends of mine were doing a cook out for our homeless friends. There were at least 60 of us in the park that day. And although this was a first (the cookout), it was not the first time these men, women, and children had fed, loved on, and talked to many of these people. They called each other by name, and were so genuinely glad to see one another. And the food and the hugs and the football and the croquet were all paid for and given away unconditionally.

Unfortunately, some there that day who didn’t know my friends were waiting for the other shoe to drop. So when two guys got out their guitars to play some jazz and folk music, one man was overheard to say, “Uh-oh! They’re gettin’ out the guitars. Here comes the Jesus message…”

Bait and switch.

Now my friends and I had no intentions of doing anything more than feeding, hugging, and spending some time with them. But they were so conditioned to the schemes and methods they had seen so many times before that they were certain we were getting ready to “lay some Jesus on them.”

Some of my other friends who are missionaries in Asia have a name for people who convert in one of these bait and switch situations. They call them “rice Christians.” Rice Christians (whether in Asia or South Tulsa) aren’t won to Jesus, they are won to: fill-in-the-bait.

Now, so far you’re wondering how this applies to our subject of “Sending the Indigenous.” I guess what I’m wondering in my head and wandering through with the above is if we are ready to entrust the Holy Spirit with the next step. If we can trust Him to draw or to persuade the indigenous to follow him without our coercion or manipulation, are we ready to allow Him to help them to contextualize the truths of scripture for their own culture without our messing it up for them?

Before we can talk about sending the indigenous to reach their own, we have to answer the question: Are we ready to let them build their own versions of ecclesiology (church) and maybe even soteriology (salvation) that may or may not resemble our versions?

Let the Spirit Do the Persuading

I mentioned in an earlier chapter that I had worked for a church in Atlanta, Georgia during the late 80’s. One Christmas Eve we decided that we should do a candlelight, carol, and communion service. However, none of us had ever done a candle lighting service before. So, unfortunately we didn’t know the rules. But, how hard can it be, right?

We bought those special little candles that come with the cardboard drip protectors. But the pastor thought the staff ought to have “bigger candles” (if you know what I mean) than everyone else, because we were the ones who were going to be lighting everyone else’s candles. It was a symbolic expression of our superiority over the laity or something, I don’t know. Anyway, this was the plan.

I don’t remember if we had drip protectors or not, but it wouldn’t have mattered. We didn’t do it right. We flitted around lighting the congregation’s candles from our big ones, and since it was dark, we had no idea the pain we were inflicting or the mess we were making. But after Christmas our mistakes saw the light of day, and we were in trouble.

I don’t remember if it was a weekly staff meeting or a special meeting or if the word was just spread around among us but, however we got the word, the word was: Never again. I guess people got burned by our wax and we got it on people’s clothes. But the worst thing was we got wax all over the carpet. Do you realize how hard it is to get wax out of carpet? Not good. Turns out we broke all the rules.

See, here’s the way it’s supposed to work. Once a single candle gets lit, that candle must remain upright. Then another unlit candle leans in to be lit from its flame. One by one, in all directions, the unlit candles lean in to be lit by the upright ones. That way the wax stays on the protector, no one gets burned, and no wax gets dropped on the carpet or other people.

This is the best metaphor I have ever found to describe the kind of evangelism required for the 21st century.

Jesus said that we are the light of the world. Once lit, it is imperative that we remain as “upright”—in every sense of that word—as possible. Then, those who wish to join us can lean in to our light. But that is the work of God’s Holy Spirit. So many people have been “burned” by well-meaning people bent on fulfilling the Great Commission by any means possible. But, the scriptures indicate that it is the Spirit who draws people to him. And there are no “altar calls” recorded in the New Testament. In fact, the scriptural pattern is this: those who desire to follow Christ will ask us how to do so without coercion or confrontation from us.

After Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost, when many say the church began, the scriptures say the people were “cut to the heart.” (Acts 2:14 – 37) Then they responded with these words, “Brothers, what must we do?” Then, when Paul and Silas were freed from jail by a miraculous earthquake, the jailer fell on his knees and asked them, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:6 – 24)

They will ask.

No need for confrontation, manipulation, or even an altar call. It seems that those things may make “converts” you can record on your annual reports, but they don’t make disciples. And only disciples—indigenous disciples—can suitably reach the indigenous.

Contextualize the Message, Part 1

There is a 100 year old story (legend) told by the great Indian follower of Jesus Sadhu Sundar Singh. (A Sadhu is a Hindu ascetic.) The story is about a Brahman man—a high-caste Hindu—in India who fainted from the summer heat while sitting on a train at a railway station. Someone ran to the faucet, filled a cup with water, and brought it to the man in an attempt to revive him. But in spite of his condition, the passenger would not accept the water because it was offered to him in the cup of a man belonging to another caste. Then someone noticed that the high-caste man had a cup on the seat beside him; so he grabbed it, went out and filled it with water, returned, and offered it to the man, who now readily accepted the water with gratitude.

At this point, Sundar Singh would tell his audience that missionaries from the West had been offering the “water of life” to the people of India in a foreign cup. Therefore, they were reluctant to receive it. However, Sundar Singh was offering it in their own cup, so that they were much more likely to accept it. In other words, as an indigenous member of the Indian culture, Sundar Singh was able to offer up the Gospel in an indigenous form. Now they could understand the message within the context of their lives.

Unfortunately, the American church has mistakenly supposed that she has been communicating the Gospel in the language and the context of the culture. Perhaps, the message and methods of the early twentieth century worked back then, but for the last 50 years the strident call has been falling on increasingly deaf ears. We have not been offering the water of life in their cup. We’ve been offering it up in ours—a cup forged in modernity and revivalism, with words and idioms of a bygone era. I call it a King James message to a Stephen King world.

Meanwhile, the culture has left us in the dust, while we have become more and more culturally incestual. Some who would criticize the Amish practices of isolationist customs and behaviors are just as separatist in their traditions and programs.

The Campus Crusade tract The Four Spiritual Laws depicts a familiar picture to most Christians of an uncrossable canyon between man and God which must be bridged by the cross of Jesus. Unfortunately, before that message will be heard, there is an equally uncrossable and ever-widening gap fixed between church culture and popular culture. And it is a crevasse that must be bridged by the church.

In places and circumstances where people have been less receptive to the message of the Gospel, several scholars have tried to understand and plot the journey to faith. James Engel in his 1975 book What’s Gone Wrong with the Harvest? shares what has become known as the Engel Scale. Expanding on Engel’s work, Paul and Sue Hazelden began working on a modified Engel Scale in 2000 which is a bit more broad. It includes people who have no “God concept” at all. And, finally Frank Gray of the Far East Broadcasting Company developed the Gray Matrix that expands their work. His matrix includes not only the cognitive elements of the Engel Scale but also attitudinal aspects—a person’s receptivity to the message—on a two-dimensional model with vertical and horizontal axes.

These will not be explained here, but they can be studied separately by accessing the links provided. Believe me, they are an invaluable resource for anyone who is trying to understand the progression toward faith and how important life context is in that process. It is also a valuable tool for the church to recognize that most of its efforts will not reach to people any further away than about a negative four on the Engel Scale. And most church programs are designed for people in the “C” quadrant (higher knowledge and receptivity) of the Gray Matrix.

In part two we will include what it might look like to offer the water of life in their cup.

Immerse Yourself in the Culture

One of the mistaken assumptions of early missions from the West to “less civilized” continents was that the countries being conquered, colonized, “civilized,” and proselytized were in some way inferior to Western culture. Anyone who has ever seen the 1980 Jamie Uys masterpiece “The Gods Must Be Crazy” realizes the absurdity of that thinking. Or if you know the story of Gandhi, whose moral superiority brought the British Empire to its knees, you can appreciate the hubris of such belief.

Thank goodness and hindsight that we are now teaching new candidates a better approach to “foreign missions.” At least in most schools we are embracing the worth and the beauty of cultural diversity. And we’re teaching aspiring missionaries how important it is to immerse themselves in the life and culture of the indigenous.

However, we Westerners are slow to learn. It is unfortunate that the same antiquated 19th century kind of thinking still goes on inside the minds of people at all levels in the American church. American Christians believe their way of life to be superior in every way to those outside the church. Therefore, we continue the conquer, colonize, civilize, and proselytize mentality of our forbears.

But what if we—like our foreign counterparts—were to immerse ourselves in the culture around us? What if we were to embrace the culture outside the walls of the church? Here in America. What would that look like? I’m not advocating sin. I’m not advocating promiscuity. What I am advocating is changing the TV channel away from Christian television and to the shows that are exploring spiritual matters. Try listening to NPR instead of Christian radio.

Current shows like “Lost” or “Heroes” or “Ghost Whisperer” explore spirituality. Even the prime-time cartoon “The Simpsons” poses questions and explores possible answers to the spiritual quest of some of its characters. And has done so for 20 years! In fact, Homer’s next door neighbor Ned Flanders (fictional graduate of Oral Roberts University) made the cover of “Christianity Today.” There are myriad ways to explore the culture without indulging in immoral behavior.

More importantly, what I am advocating is sitting at table with those who will never darken the door of a church. What I am advocating is befriending “prostitutes,” “tax collectors,” and “sinners.” Does that sound vaguely familiar?

What I am advocating is creating opportunities to be a light that is surrounded by darkness. A candle adds very little light to a room brightly lit with hundreds of other intense lights. And a light hidden under the “bushel” of church walls is no light at all.

Then, beyond sitting at table, we must listen to the hearts and the voices of those who find themselves outside our exclusive circle. The inventor of the stethoscope, René Laennec, said, “Listen to your patients; they are telling you how to heal them.” Great advice for the church.

I love this quote from Earl Creps’ book Off-Road Disciplines: “Christian leaders today need to listen for the questions posed by those navigating our cultural perfect storm, regardless of the relationship of those voices to the Church. This sort of humility requires no compromise of orthodoxy but goes a long way toward defusing an often suspicious post-Christian audience, while maturing the Church in its devotion to Christ.” (p. 132)

Learning the language and immersing one’s self in the culture are the first two steps that will allow us to contextualize the message of Jesus for the people outside the church. Contextualization is the next step in the process.

"Missionaries" to Tulsa

Sometimes just thinking gets me in trouble. I guess it’s not really the thinking; it’s when I open my mouth about what I’m thinking. When I was studying for the credentialing process, I started wondering: Why do pastors and missionaries go through a completely different set of courses from each other? (Am I the only guy who wonders about stuff like this?) I know that the Bible materials, the hermeneutics, the homiletics, and other things are the same. But, aren’t these two considered (in most Bible schools and seminaries) different schools, or at least different departments? Pastoral ministry on the one hand and missions education on the other?

Why?

Now, I know that I didn’t go to a Bible college or a seminary, but I have a lot of friends who did. A lot of friends. Close, personal friends. Plus, I had to take a miniature version of “Bible school” at the institute level in order to become ordained. We’re talking 33 courses on everything from church history to church polity, from Roberts Rules of Order to the most basic of doctrines—orthodoxy, and orthopraxy—with a little preaching, a little administration, and a little leadership thrown into the mix. So I have a clue.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not foolish enough to think of my education as an equivalent to that of the greatest American seminaries. I am well aware that I drew the short stick there. But, I was only required to take one course on cross cultural communications and another on world religions. And according to my unscientific surveys of friends, that’s not too far off from “real” Bible schools.

In the last 10 years, I’ve done quite a lot of self-educating in the study of missiology. (Once again, the short stick, on the short bus.) And I have been surprised at what I have learned. Your experience may be different from mine. However, after a childhood of observing shaky 16mm movies of missionaries who had turned naked African “savages” into Americanized “Christians” wearing shoes, long pants, white shirts, and ties, it wasn’t hard for even a child to see what was wrong with this picture. Needless to say, many years ago I bought into a more indigenous method. At least with regard to “foreign” missions—a method that did not violate the “Prime Directive.”

But more recently, in the starting of a new church, I came to the conclusion that while this method is being used all over the world (hopefully), it hasn’t been tried in America—at least not in the last 50 years, if ever. And, with church attendance at less than 20% of the American population on any given Sunday, it might be time to appropriate indigenous mission methods on American soil.

You can take this or leave it, since I am the “short stick” guy. But I have been working on a five step summary of the indigenous method. So, at the risk of over-simplifying, here are the basics of how one might accomplish such an endeavor. I will merely list the steps here, but I will attempt to explain each one with a succeeding blog chapter.

1. Learn the language.
2. Immerse yourself in the culture.
3. Contextualize the Gospel into the language and the culture of the indigenous.
4. Allow the Holy Spirit to draw the indigenous.
5. Empower and send the indigenous to reach their own.

I don’t like the verbiage of “strategy” when it comes to the Gospel. It objectifies the “target audience” and has militaristic overtones. But, these simple steps could certainly qualify as a broad guideline and a methodology for rethinking our approach to church and to mission in America.